Sermon Video: How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God - Mark 10:17-31

 "What must I do to inherit eternal life?" This is, indeed, THE question for all of humanity. Asked of Jesus, he responds by considering the Law of Moses which offers humanity understanding of the character (holiness, righteousness) of God, which we are commanded to imitate. Jesus then shows that God requires total commitment from human beings, a requirement that weights heavier upon the rich and powerful. If those with the most resources among us have no chance of earning eternity, what chance have any of us? None, but don't despair. God has already offered the answer to this question through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, which offers us forgiveness by grace through faith. In the end, our devotion to God is not akin to padding our resume or studying for a final exam, instead it is our thank you note to God, our response to what he has already done for us.

Sermon Video: Receive God like a child - Mark 10:13-16

 In the familiar episode where Jesus rebukes his disciples for trying to prevent parents from presenting their children to him to be blessed, Jesus offers one lesson by his action/attitude, and another by his words. By being indignant with his disciples and allowing the children to receive a blessing, Jesus warns us against the all too familiar folly of presuming to know the will of God (and acting, wrong, accordingly). By comparing entrance into the Kingdom of God to the something to be received 'like a little child', Jesus also warns against things such as pride, self-reliance, and closed mindedness. The attitude of children is the path toward acceptance of salvation by grace through faith because children have (1) a low position (humility), (2) accept authority (obedience), (3) open hears/minds, and (4) a willingness to belief beyond what their own senses tell them. For reasons such as these, Jesus holds the attitude/mindset of childen up as something to be emulated, not scorned.

Sermon Video: Divorce: From God's Perspective - Mark 10:1-12

 Marriage being a fundamental building block of human society, questions about the purpose of marriage, and the morality/legality of divorce, touch upon nearly everyone. Given that, the perspective of God, as given by Jesus when asked to interpret the Law of Moses, has immense value. Jesus' answer is rooted in the Genesis account of Creation, as he emphasizes that God's ideal is that two halves would become a whole and remain united. Given that Moses offered a divorce exception, what should our response be as a Church to this issue? (Hint: It involves grace, but you should know that already.)

Sermon Video: How Salty Are You? Mark 9:49-50

 Having just warned about the impending danger of Hell, Jesus turns to the quality that sets his followers apart from those the path of destruction: saltiness.  Jesus uses salt as a metaphor, primarily of preserving and transforming, to warn/encourage his disciples that they are transformative agents in this world, that like salt in the ancient world, they have numerous life-affirming roles to play for the Kingdom of God.

Salt that isn't salty?  True NaCl is always salty, it always performs its function, so to with true disciples of Jesus, who all bear witness to the Spirit's transforming power through their adoption of the Fruit of the Spirit.

The blasphemous "One Nation Under God" painting by Jon McNaughton

 

"One Nation Under God" is a painting by contemporary artist Jon McNaughton, his own interpretation of the piece, and why he chose the figures in it that he did is explained on his website: McNaughton fine art company.  And while McNaughton's view of American history and contemporary culture is a decidedly partisan one, that isn't the reason why his painting is blasphemous, but rather his insistence, as the painting makes abundantly clear, that the U.S. Constitution was given to the Founding Fathers by God.  While the U.S. Constitution, and very necessary subsequent Bill of Rights, are collectively the most profound political documents since the Magna Carta, and are indeed a significant step forward in the realms of human governance and freedom, to call them God-inspired, or divinely given in some fashion is to take an imperfect document created by fallible men, and coat it with a false veneer of holiness.  It is as if McNaughton is saying that the concept of limited federalism is God's preferred form of governance.  Except that God has never said any such thing, for although democracy was known in the ancient world as a cautionary tale about mob-rule (given the way in which the Athenian Empire collapsed), the only forms of government mentioned in the Bible at all are tribalism, theocracies, monarchies, and empires.  As such, the Bible neither recommends nor condemns democracies or republics.  Inspired by Christian thinkers and/or the Bible is NOT the same thing as given by God.  The Church was founded by Jesus and established by the Holy Spirit, no human nation, including the United States of America, can make a similar claim {Future fulfillment of Abrahmic promies in a Messianic Kingdom notwithstanding}.

"The fact that Christ holds the Constitution is very significant. I believe it was a divinely inspired document." - Jon McNaughton

Aside from this false impression that the U.S. Consitution has some sort of seal of approval from God is the blatant and horrendous association of Jesus Christ with the Constitution's declaration that Black Americans are only 3/5 of a person (for census purposes: The 3/5th Compromise) with no rights whatsoever, a status shared to a lesser exent in our nation's founding documents by women and Indians.  To associate Jesus Christ with the racial and sexist views of the past is to portray the Gospel as the White Man's Gospel, once again a blasphemous thought that flies in the face of the declaration by the Apostle Paul that, "there is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." (Galatians 3:28).

As important a step forward as the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights have proven to be, they remain an example of human sin-nature, of the embrace of a political compromise at the expense of the fundamental human rights that the Declaration of Independence declared, but failed to deliver.  It would take more than 600,000 deaths in the U.S. Civil War one hundred years later to rectify that error, and another century to begin to unravel the further injustices heaped upon the newly freed slaves.  The point is simply this: there is both praise and criticism that justly belongs to the Founding Fathers and the documents they produced, to pretend that Jesus Christ would hold up their work as a shining example is nothing short of blasphemous.

Christian Nationalism has been gaining steam in America, seeking to fuse duty to God with duty to country and make patriotism a Christian virtue.  Unfortunately, this idea has been tried before, with disastrous results, and to the extent that the Church in America follows this path, it will once again sow the seeds of its own failure and shame.

For historical context, read the amazing speech by American hero Frederick Douglass, delivered before the Civil War: "The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro"

"Fellow-citizens, pardon me, allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak here to-day? What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence? Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us? and am I, therefore, called upon to bring our humble offering to the national altar, and to confess the benefits and express devout gratitude for the blessings resulting from your independence to us?...But such is not the state of the case. I say it with a sad sense of the disparity between us. I am not included within the pale of glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common.ÑThe rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought light and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn. To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak to-day? If so, there is a parallel to your conduct. And let me warn you that it is dangerous to copy the example of a nation whose crimes, towering up to heaven, were thrown down by the breath of the Almighty, burying that nation in irrevocable ruin! I can to-day take up the plaintive lament of a peeled and woe-smitten people!

'By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down. Yea! we wept when we remembered Zion.'

What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer; a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are, to Him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy -- a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages.There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States, at this very hour." - Frederick Douglass, born in America, 1817, a slave.

Rejecting Idolatry: No, Mike Pence, we will not, "Fix our eyes on Old Glory"

White Nationalism and White Supremacy are an abomination to the Church

The Myth of a Christian Nation - by Gregory Boyd: a summary and response

An unhealthy overemphasis on politics

A Moral Hierarchy: A refutation of William Barr's, "Other than slavery, which was a different kind of restraint, this is the greatest intrusion on civil liberties in American history."

The value of perspective: The American Church is a minority

Sermon Video: Pluck out your eye? Mark 9:42-48

 Utilizing brutally stark imagery, Jesus seeks to impress upon his disciples the seriousness of the things that people do (or fail to do) that lead others into sin or otherwise cause them to 'stumble', particularly when those being affected are those who believe in Jesus.  In addition, Jesus also warns about the seriousness of sin to our own condition, equating it with the kind of handicap that we do fear, when tragically many do not concern themselves with the much greater reality of hell.  What would we be willing to pay, what hardship would we be willing to endure in order to avoid damaging our relationship with God?  For far too many Hell is treated like a remote possibility (like being bitten by a shark in the ocean) rather than the inevitability that it is for all those who spurn the Son of God.